he's standing outside her dorm building, a tall brick building choked by ivy.

in all honesty, tom isn't entirely sure how he got here. he remembers waking up in his hotel room this morning. he remembers realizing mel was was three hundred and seventy five miles away. he remembers the ache of missing her, the same as every morning for the past three weeks.

but the rest of the day is a blur, eight hours of driving lost to him. he got in the car and left la without thinking, his body speaking for him like a reflex. there's a small voice telling him he's crazy for driving all this way just to see her, but that voice is drowned in the sea of his heart.

the shrill electronic ringing of his phone pierces his thoughts, making him jump.

his stomach gives a jolt when he sees mel's scowling face on the screen, giving him the middle finger.

he turns his face to the sky, eyes narrowed.

"if there's a god up there," he mutters "your idea of comedic timing sucks."

a girl passing by looks at him strangely and grabs onto her bag tighter, like he might make a grab for it. it makes sense. he's been standing here for twenty seven minutes and grumbling at the sky. he'd worry about his valuables too.

he presses the answer button and holds his phone up to his ear.

"hey, mel!" he says, trying to sound casual and cheerful.

"that was the fakest hello you've ever given me," she says, as a form of greeting. "you sound like you're being held hostage. if you are, i'm not paying to get you back."

"if i'm being held hostage, you're probably the one who ordered it."

"aw, you know me so well. anyways, how's la?"

"oh, it's um. . .it's. . ."

"don't bother. i'm just messing with you," she laughs. "you've been outside my window for like half an hour. we took bets to see how long it would take you to stop looking tortured and sad and come inside. ian said forty minutes and i really want him to lose, so i'm calling to invite you in now."

"wha—i—you—"

"also, you should probably come in because campus security thinks you're a threat. they called to warn us there was, and i quote, a "a suspicious caucasian boy" staring into the third floor windows."

"how did you even know it was me?"

"you're wearing the shirt i made you as a goodbye present. it's not exactly subtle."

tom looks down at his bright blue t-shirt. mel had given it to him before she'd left. he must've put it on last night and forgotten to change, because there's no other way he would've otherwise voluntarily selected a shirt with carl sagan's head, a pink heart, and the words "carl me maybe" written on the back.

"i'll buzz you in," she says, then hangs up.

there's a long beep and the door makes a low, harsh grating noise before swinging opens an inch. he pushes it open hesitantly to find himself in some sort of common room, lined with frayed couches and a whiteboard that says "2 DAYS SINCE SAJAN'S LAST FIRE".

he watches as a tall girl with blonde hair comes down the stairs next to him with a sigh, an empty watering can in her hand. she erases the two on the board and replaces it with a zero. when she sees him, she just shakes her head and goes back upstairs.

"oh my god, you must be tom!" a sunny voice shrieks suddenly from somewhere behind him.

he turns to find himself being attacked by a pair of arms and a head of golden brown hair. the arms wrap around him tightly in a bone-crushing hug. when the girl releases him, he tries not to gasp for air too loudly and tries to subtly spit out some of her hair, which has found its way into his mouth.

"you're kara, right?" he says when she pulls away, recognizing her face from mel's pictures.

she's practically bouncing up and down. "yes! that's me! oh gosh, this is so exciting!"

"it's really lovely to meet you. i've heard a lot about you," he smiles.

"i've heard a lot about you."

his heart clenches in his chest. "you have?"

"yeah, mel, never shuts up about you. i can see why. that's not me hitting on you, by the way."

he laughs softly.

"but i mean, you're spiderman. oh my god, i'm meeting spiderman!"

he wonders vaguely if she's taken a breath at all since they first started talking.

"i have to write a song about this," she continues.

somewhere down the hall, there's a noise and a voice yells "kara, for the love of god, no!"

"it's art, jessie," she yells back. "i'm going to get my guitar right now!"

there's another thud and someone says "where did we put the spray bottle?"

kara's eyes widen. "why don't move this away from jessie and maelle's room, actually?" she says hastily.

she pushes him in the direction of the stairs.

"so you flew all the way here, huh?" she asks.

"drove, actually."

there's a small, knowing smile on her face.

"well, i'm sure mel is excited to see you."

his face burns.

"oh, no, we're not. . .we. . .no," he finishes lamely.

"your aura says otherwise," she says sagely. "it's red, the color of love."

"my. . .what?"

kara pokes the air next to his ear.

"the spiritual energy field that surrounds you. duh. anyways, want to come upstairs? i made some granola if you want. we're on the third floor. "

he blinks. "um, sure," he says.

kara claps her hands. "sorry about the smell in advance. sajan lit my keens on fire. i tried to cover it with some incense but now everything just smells like a patchouli factory fire. you know how it is."

"right," is the only way he can think to respond.

she leads him up a set of stairs, bordered with brightly colored posters and fluorescent lights. his heart is beating so loudly in his chest he's afraid kara will hear it. he shoves his hands into his pockets, trying to disguise the fact that they're trembling slightly.

when they reach the top of the stairs, tom is greeted with the chaos he's comes to associate with mel and her friends.

someone has stuffed a green corduroy couch into the narrow hallway. nina and another girl stand on it, one of them holding an empty toilet paper roll. remy, clad in a wizard's cape, jumps from pillow to pillow beneath them.

"shit!" he yells when his foot grazes a blue duct tape circle.

nina cackles. "recite immanuel kant's theory of utopian ethics or the acid monster eats you!"

remy lets out a groan. someone is loudly playing bohemian rhapsody by queen in the background and everything smells heavily of burning rubber and lavender. tom tries to remind himself this is reality.

"tom!" someone calls out.

he turns to see ian, who claps him on the back with a grin. he's holding a bowl of what looks like wet mulch. he follows tom's gaze and extends the blue bowl to him.

"kale pudding? kara made it."

he tries to think of a nice way to say he'd rather rip off his own legs.

"i wouldn't touch that if you enjoy having a functioning digestive system," a voice says.

he barely hears kara's protest of "it has kale! it's healthy!"

because the voice came from mel, who has stepped out of her dorm room.

his heartbeat trips over itself, stumbling out of rhythm, because she's standing here in front of him, a real and breathing thing.

her hair is pulled back in a bun, held with a purple mechanical pencil. when she sees him looking at it, she turns a faint pink and pulls it out. her hair tumbles to her shoulders like an oil spill.

the hallway has suddenly gone very quiet. or maybe the hum in his ears has just drowned out all other noise. he can't seem to bear to look her in the eyes, and his gaze fixes upon her wrist. he stares at the pale strip of skin there, interrupted by blue veins, where mel's skin has been hidden under her watch. there's a small smudge of ink. it stands out in stark contrast, a spot of night sky against the summer sun.

he swallows hard and forces his throat and lungs to work together and form the words that have been patiently sitting on the back of his tongue.

"hi, mel." his voice sounds too loud and he winces.

"hi, tom. um, what are you doing here?" she asks.

her voice slowly lilts when she speaks. her words leap from one to another without harsh consonants. the sentence spills from her lips, dark and slow moving. his own voice seems clumsy in comparison.

he vaguely thinks that he's so unbelievably screwed. because she's only said one sentence to him and he's already coming apart at the seams.

"i just came by to visit," he says, scratching the back of his neck and feeling his face get hot. "ian invited me."

she turns to ian, who is doing a bad job of cowering behind his bowl of green mush.

"you're the one who said you missed tom!" he protests.

mel turns a shade of pink that matches the neon heart on his shirt.

"the only time i miss someone is when i try to punch them and they move," she says, shooting ian a withering look.

"don't get mad at ian," tom says quickly. "i'm the one who drove up here. i guess i thought maybe you could show me around or something. i don't know."

she peers up at him for a moment over the tops of her glasses.

"i'm supposed to be studying," she says hesitantly.

kara lets out a huff.

"mel, you've been studying for hours. it's saturday. go show tom around."

mel chews her lip for a moment.

"fine, i guess. let me grab a jacket." she hesitates. "you can come in if you want," she adds.

she pulls the door to her room back open and he follows her without hesitation.

the room is obviously split in two. kara's side is spilling over with small potted plants and colorful tasseled pillows. there are posters of famous paintings on the walls and he can barely see the carpet through the tangle of clothes and crumpled paper on the floor.

mel's side, in the other hand, could pass military inspection. her walls are a blank white to match her neatly made bed, a single pillow at the top. her desk is bordered with color coordinated binders, the only color on her side. there's no decoration anywhere, no pictures or posters. tom steps into it carefully, afraid he'll somehow bring the chaos with him.

mel pulls a uc berkley sweatshirt over her head, knocking her glasses askew. she pushes them back up her nose, and he realizes the sweatshirt covers her hands entirely. for some reason, this makes his stomach give a jolt.

she grabs a bag and turns to him. "ready?" she asks.

then she smiles. mel is a girl carved from charcoal, stormy eyes and dark hair, but this smile illuminates her whole face and tom feels his heart clench behind his ribs. she smiles, and the entire world is erased.

he realizes he's staring.

"ready," he lies, knowing he never was and never will be ready for someone like mel santiago.

─

tom realizes they've spent all day exploring san francisco when the sun begins to slip behind the skyscrapers, turning the sky a pale pink that promises to explode into orange and red. the knot in his stomach has faded and he's forgotten all about being nervous around mel. she's shown him the secret places anyone else would've missed—an old bookstore filled with yellowing pages, a twisting alley hidden behind a veil of murals, a tiny fortune cookie factory filled with the sweet smell of honey.

mel is exactly the same as she is in her texts, bitter and biting and sarcastic, but he sees the light beaming through the cracks in her facade. he can see how much she loves this city and its quiet chaos.

now, she points to a hill across the water, their next destination.

they're driving across golden gate bridge in his car to sausalito on the other side. the towering bridge rises up through the fog in front of them, edged with gilt from the setting sun.

"there's an abandoned military fort up at the top," she says, peering through his windshield. "i used to go up there all the time and read and stuff and watch the ships come in the harbor."

"how come you don't anymore?" he asks.

she's quiet for a minute.

"i guess i just stopped having time for things like that."

as they pull off the bridge, tom suddenly turns left and begins to nudge the car along the ridge of one of the rolling hills.

"what are you doing?" she protests, turning to look at him. "sausalito is that way."

he stays quiet, but smiles.

when he spots the collection of graffitied concrete buildings at the top, he pulls into the stretch of gravel along the side of the road. he turns off the car and pushes open mel's door for her.

"come on."

"what—"

"we're going to your fort."

she rolls her eyes. "it's not my fort," she grumbles, but gets out of the car anyway.

they walk to it together. he can feel her next to him, their feet moving in time with one another. the wind curling off the bay cuts through the material of his jacket with an icy gasp, but he hardly notices.

the setting sun has set the world ablaze. even the concrete under his feet burns with golden light. he can't help but smile at how beautiful this single moment in time is.

he sticks out an arm abruptly and mel stops, turning towards him.

"what now?"

"look how beautiful it is, mel. just take a second to look. to really look."

she rolls her eyes again. "you're such a sap."

but she turns her face towards the bay. the bridge is an island among the clouds, a spire to the heavens. the sky has exploded into an array of reds and oranges that makes the color of the bridge pale in comparison. the sea melts into the cliffs, which are spun with golden threads of evening light.

he forgets all this, though, when he see mel's face.

her face is tilted up towards the sky, eyes soft and wondering. the wind picks up pieces of her hair, making them dance around her chin and neck. the harsh lines and edges mel is made of fade into the sunset.

he thinks, carelessly, that he could survive off this moment for the rest of his life. the tug of her smile, the echo of the bridge in her eyes, the dark ripple of her hair in the breeze. this moment in time could keep him alive forever without a breath of air or a sip of water.

mel turns back to him and smiles, softly, like she can't help it.

they don't say anything after that. they just watch the mountains swallow the sun, each last piece of sunlight disappearing slowly.

"come on," mel says eventually. "i know this place in little italy that makes the best gnocchi in the entire world."

he nods and they head back towards the city, a star in the fog.

the day is lost again to the night again, but for once he's not sad to see it go.

: KERCHAW YA BOI IS WHIPPED. but seriously here's my nondenominational present to you all. i hope you enjoy and have a wonderful holiday season. i am beyond grateful for all of you (wait never mind that's thanksgiving everyone can choke)